Katy Perry performs on stage at the “Witness: The Tour” concert at the Staples Center on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan, Invision/AP)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Katy Perry performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

Purity Ring’s Megan James performs at the Staples Center during the first of three stops on the Witness Tour in Los Angeles on Tuesday, Nov. 7, 2017. (Photo by Matt Masin, Orange County Register/ SCNG)

On opening night of the Pop Stars Battle of Los Angeles on Tuesday I drew the Katy Perry card and headed for Staples Center for the first of Perry’s three shows there this week while colleague Kelli headed off the Forum for Bruno Mars and the first of four – four! – shows there.

It is what we in the pop music business call a no-lose situation because Perry and Mars, while their music may be different and Perry most certainly has more costume changes and enormous pink flamingos in her show, are – when you strip everything else away – truly fun performers with whom to spend a few hours.

So let’s break it down, the first stop on Witness: The Tour in Perry’s adopted hometown of L.A., a night that packed 20 songs, six costume changes and one flight by Perry above the crowd while riding on the planet Saturn into just under two hours and dazzled the not-quite-packed house that turned out for the weeknight show.

The new songs

On her fifth album, “Witness,” many of the songs felt flat, and less engaging than earlier hits such as “Teenage Dream,” “California Gurls,” and “Firework,” which such huge hooks you couldn’t help but sing along to the car radio or the club DJ. At Staples on Tuesday, though, many came to life. The night opened with the pairing of “Witness” and “Roulette,” which were done so quickly – maybe six minutes to run through both – that you barely had time to absorb the set and costumes – red-and-black harlequin dancers writhing in and out of holes in the giant dice on stage – before they were done.

But when Perry gave her new material room to breathe – on the reggae-tinged “Chained to the Rhythm,” on the slinky, sensual “Déjà Vu” – you could see how these new songs – more grooves, less hooks – can find their place in her set.

The hits

The show was organized into roughly four chapters, mostly to let Perry and her dancers dash off stage for costume changes, with the second block of songs holding many of her biggest hits. “Teenage Dream” saw Perry return to the stage in an over-sized white suit with a black windowpane pattern – simple enough, especially for her – and her dancers looking like vintage cartoon characters, with bright yellow balls on their heads, pink-and-blue patterns on the rest of their garments.

It, and the songs that followed – “Hot N Cold,” “Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.),” “California Gurls” and “I Kissed A Girl,” which saw Perry lifted up and through an enormous pair of floating lips – all had the crowd on its feet to dance and sing as the dancers, including a cameo by Left Shark of Perry’s Super Bowl halftime show fame, and the stage props shifted on and off stage from one track to another.

Style and design

You know you’ll get a ton of color at a Katy Perry show, and this one did not disappoint. From an ’80s palette of flat Art Deco women and pastel geometric shapes – think artist Patrick Nagel and the Italian collective of Memphis Design – during “Hot N Cold” and “California Gurls,” to the Alice In Wonderland-inspired wildness of the black and white costumes and props during “Bon Appetit,” which ended with massive salt and pepper shakers covering Perry in silver glitter, the visuals on stage or on the eye-shaped screen behind never stopped changing.

One of the simplest, yet loveliest performances came during “Thinking Of You,” a lesser-known song from maybe a decade ago, which found Perry riding atop a mini-Saturn, rings and all, floating between inflatable planets above the fans on the floor. A delicate ballet, a subtly beautiful production, an Instagram highlight – what more do you want?

The fans

It’s a strangely diverse crowd that Perry draws, ranging from little girls who were definitely out past their bedtimes on a weeknight, to adult fans who love her songs for their pop craft and dance beats. And to her credit, Perry doesn’t pander to any of them, staying true to who she is, a fun and funny performer – her comedic timing was perfect at times during the between-song banter – who still feels like a bit of an outsider despite all her success.

At the end of “Thinking Of You” she picked a girl out of the crowd at the back of the arena to come on stage with her. Thirteen-year-old Lisa was practically vibrating with emotion when she got there and gave Perry a huge hug and told her she was “from a little town called La Habra.”

The set-up involved wishing on a shooting star – Perry had just descended from the planets and stars in the rafters – and so she asked Lisa what she wished for – “World peace” – and what she wanted to be when she grew up: a performer. “She’s gonna be a singer and an actress and take my job,” Perry said in mock outrage as the kid left the stage.

Later, during “Swish Swish,” one of the best tracks on “Witness” with its house music boom and beats, she brought a dad out of the crowd to play basketball on a giant hoop with beachball-sized basketballs. He lost – badly – and didn’t wish for world peace either, though she still gave him a hat that said Winner on the crown.

A happy weirdo

“Swish Swish” flowed into “Roar,” another of Perry’s biggest hits, the kind of anthem you save, as she had, to close out a set. And after a brief break, during which a good number of fans started leaving – maybe all those parents who realized how hard it was going to be to get the kids into school on Wednesday – she returned for a finale of “Firework,” sung from the palm of a giant animatronic hand at the end of the ramp that thrust into the crowd.

It, like “Roar,” is an anthem made for arenas, though here she started it slower, almost a ballad, before the pomp and thunder of the choruses kicked in.

I keep going back to “Thinking Of You,” probably because she talked the most before and after it, and how she said she’d written it after three record labels dropped her.

“It’s OK,” Perry said. “I turned out all right. I’m wearing diamonds on my head” – the sparkly headdress of that moment – “and I still believe in God.

Peter Larsen has been the Pop Culture Reporter for the Orange County Register since 2004, finally achieving the neat trick of getting paid to report and write about the stuff he's obsessed about pretty much all his life. He regularly covers the Oscars and the Emmys, goes to Comic-Con and Coachella, reviews pop music, and conducts interviews with authors and actors, musicians and directors, a little of this and a whole lot of that. He grew up, in order, in California, Arkansas, Kentucky and Oregon. Graduated from Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore. with degrees in English and Communications. Earned a master's degree at the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. Earned his first newspaper paycheck at the Belleville (Ill.) News-Democrat, fled the Midwest for Los Angeles Daily News and finally ended up at the Orange County Register. He's taught one or two classes a semester in the journalism and mass communications department at Cal State Long Beach since 2006. Somehow managed to get a lovely lady to marry him, and with her have two daughters. And a dog named Buddy. Never forget the dog.

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